Cops Told This Uber Driver It's Illegal to Film Them. Surprise, He's a Lawyer | Hacker News Reader

Cops Told This Uber Driver It's Illegal to Film Them. Surprise, He's a Lawyer

reason.com

50 pointsayanai15 comments

"As a result, the Deputy involved has been counseled." So one officer of the five involved was counselled after they violated his constitutional rights? I really hope one day the situation with police discipline in the US will be addressed, but I don't know what it will take.

As far as I know, current US precedent has a long line of cases justifying "reasonable police mistakes" as par for the course, so that's really the most you can hope for.

Here's some examples:

https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2015/Apr15/50opn15...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-604_ec8f.pdf

And this is how it usually plays out outside the courtroom:

https://blog.simplejustice.us/2014/12/17/but-for-video-a-mis...

In all of my interactions with the police I've found that they pretty much have a free pass to do whatever they want to. Make up laws, threaten, beat, or kill. The punishment they receive will never measure up to any crime they commit.

Not sure what, if anything, could ever be done about it.

Body cam everything. Real penities for this when on film.

That was the Sheriff's statement only one officer involved was a Sheriff Deputy. The others were cops.

How can a citizen be free if cops try to enforce laws that they merely imagine, while everyone else has to use the legislative process?

You need to live somewhere away from cops, such as in the wilderness in Alaska.

Small, cheap, convenient recording devices potentially open up a whole new world wrt combating in-justice.

If I lived in the US, I'd wire up every inch of my car with cameras, to film criminals and cops alike. I'd have them all concealed, locked up and secure, and frequently streamed streamed to a remote server.

This is the real way to combat police injustice - a public pan-opticon!

If I lived in a bad neighborhood, I'd wire myself up everything I left the house.

Why the hell groups like BLM don't do this, I don't know; every bad cop is an legislative opportunity!

It's better to wire the cops.

There should be a federal law requiring all police officers wear body cams while interacting with the public. Further, it should be required that they be the kind that send a live feed to police dispatchers. I've seen how quickly police brutality gets dealt with when it's witnessed by public transportation security through their cameras at train stations. When someone is responsible for reporting crimes as they happen because they're watching them live, bad cops lose their jobs before the press can even report it.

It should be law that a police officer loses their authority the second their body cam is off. Streaming body cams should become the new police badges. Arrest someone without a body cam? Kidnapping and assault. Pull someone over when you're not on duty? Impersonating a police officer. Bark orders to people at a gas station on your way to work? Disturbing the peace.

Videos get "lost" all the time, and as you see from this instance there is no repercussions for Police. Much better to take matters into your own hand and record your own video.

Recorded videos, sure. That's why it has to be a live stream with someone watching it.

Not all BLM groups, since there are many. But, if a group chooses to not use cameras it is often because they do not wish to record their own activities.

You'd think that after all the stories about people filming cops and whether it is or is not allowed that the cops would actually know the law in this area by now.

They got it wrong on purpose.

Of course they know. They expect their victims to not know.

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